Started With A Kiss
by phoenixnz
Summary: songfic - based on the song by Hot Chocolate, except the ages are changed around so Clark is 8 and Lois is 9 when they first meet. Oneshot.


I remember the first time I saw her. She was such a cute little girl, with dark wavy hair down to her waist. She was almost nine and I was eight and she had just transferred in to Smallville. Her Dad was posted at the local army base.

I was sitting in the back of the classroom when she walked in. Just a little girl, I thought with a snort. I didn't like girls much in those days. She was okay looking. Okay, she was more than okay looking, but hey, I was just a little kid. What did I know?

"Class, this is Lois Lane. She has just moved from where, Lois?"

"Um, Fort Bragg," she said.

A couple of other kids tittered and she gave them such a look that it stole my heart. She had such a fierce look on her face that I knew she was a tough kid. If I hadn't been really strong, like really, really strong, she probably would have been tougher than me. And it was funny. If you didn't know her, Lois looked like any other girl. Medium height, skinny, with really skinny legs and knobbly knees. Little did I know that she knew martial arts and she had a lot of power in those skinny limbs.

Mrs Hendricks told Lois to take a seat and Lois came to the back row, sitting next to me. I frowned at her. She might be okay looking but I still didn't want her sitting there.

"You'll look after Lois, won't you Clark?" Mrs Hendricks said.

I made a small noise of assent and went back to sticking my nose in my comic book. Mrs Hendricks didn't even notice as she started the lesson. But Lois did. She was watching me curiously. And I couldn't help but notice her smell. Like honeysuckle. Sweet, but not too sweet.

"What'cha reading there Smallville," she said.

"Nuthin'," I said with a shrug. And why was she calling me Smallville? That was the name of the town. It wasn't my name.

"My name is Clark," I told her, poking my tongue out at her. She giggled and did it right back.

"You live in Small-ville," she said, putting emphasis on the syllables.

"Shut up," I whispered.

"Make me, dork."

"Retard," I shot back.

So it began. Me and Lois. She told me she got held back a year because her Mom got sick and she missed a lot of classes. Her mom had died a couple years ago on account of the fact that she had cancer. Lois told me she smoked a lot behind the gym in high school.

We were sitting on the grass by the playground, eating our lunch. I always brown-bagged it because my mom always said to me the school lunches weren't good enough. And I loved her pot roast sandwiches. Lois looked in her bag. Her dad, being a general and all, got food made for her by the army kitchens. It wasn't always nice.

She made a face when she saw what they'd given her today. Mushy sandwiches of corned beef and something that looked like what my dog brought up. I thought about it for like ten seconds, then gave her half my sandwich, taking half of hers. At least she'd get something edible, I thought.

Lois did something that surprised me then. She kissed me. It wasn't like the kissing I saw on tv, or nothing like that. It was just, nice. But I quickly made a face like I hated it and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Eww, I don't kiss girls. Girls got cooties."

Lois looked hurt and I decided to take it back. "Okay, maybe you don't have cooties," I said. She smiled then.

We'd spend practically every day together after that. Inseparable. People started to call us twins. One day, we were playing in the field at my house and Lois opened a can of soda she'd got from the refrigerator. She wasn't supposed to since her dad told her sugar was bad for her, but she didn't care. She liked soda.

She was playing with the ring tab. "Would you marry me someday Clark?" she asked. I looked at her face. We often played games like this, but she was serious this time. She kept looking at that ring, putting it on her finger, then taking it off again.

"Okay," I said. "But you gotta promise me you'll be, like, my bride or something."

"Okay."

We sealed it with a kiss. Then I took the ring and made it official by putting it on her finger like I saw once on a tv program my mom watches all the time. Lois' eyes gleamed and she laughed happily. She was mine and I was hers and I knew it was always going to be that way.

I didn't know how it happened. One minute we were the best of friends. The next we weren't. It started happening over the course of a year. She got a little bit taller and a little less skinnier and some older boys had started to notice her.

"Hey, get your hand off her," I said, yelling at the boy who was standing with her, holding her hand. "She's my friend," I told him. His name was Whitney and he was a couple years older than me, which meant he was about a year older than Lois.

Whitney turned on me.

"You really think she wants you Farmboy? You're just a little kid."

"I am not. I'm ten," I yelled at him.

He swung at me and I pushed him down. He looked up at me, shocked, his blonde bangs falling into his eyes.

"You're just a little freak," he said as he struggled to his feet and backed away. "Freak."

He turned and ran. Lois was crying. She didn't like crying, even at eleven. Big girls don't cry, her dad often told her. But I was happy she was crying because I thought that meant that she didn't like what Whitney had been doing. I hugged her but the hug she returned wasn't as enthusiastic as I would have liked.

When I looked at her, she had a distant look in her eye. Like she wasn't thinking about me at all. Like something had changed.

"Lois, are you okay?" I asked her. She didn't answer, just turned away. The bell had gone and she walked away, going to her class, leaving me standing in the middle of the playground, wondering what had happened.

Time seemed to distance us even more then and by the time I was sixteen and she was seventeen, it was like we were strangers. We passed each other in the halls of Smallville High, but we barely talked any more. I knew then that I loved her. I'd loved her since I was eight years old and she was nine, but the more I tried to hold on to that love, the more she pulled away. My dreams of marrying her, like we'd promised each other long ago slipped through my fingers, like sand.

I would watch her dating other guys and be so jealous. I knew I had the strength to kill them with my bare hands if I wanted to, but I didn't. I couldn't. I knew if I was ever going to win her love back, I had to be better than that.

Then it happened one day. I was walking down the street in Metropolis and there she was. Six years had passed since we'd last exchanged a friendly word and I had just graduated Met U with a degree in journalism.

Lois was a vision. She was so beautiful I felt a lump in my throat.

"Lois," I called. She turned and looked at me, then looked away again. She didn't recognise me. She kept on walking. I ran up to her and pulled at her arm.

"You don't remember me, do you?" I said. "It's me. Clark."

"Clark who?" she asked.

I knew it had been a long time since we'd seen each other. She'd moved away just before senior year of high school. Her dad had been transferred once again and just like that she was gone from my life. Now she was back in Metropolis.

"Clark Kent," I said. "Smallville?"

Lois' eyes slowly widened. "Smallville! Oh my god."

"What happened then, Daddy?"

I looked at my five year old daughter, so entranced by the story. She lay in her little bed, eagerly awaiting the end of the tale that she knew so well I didn't even have to prompt her any more.

"Well, then I began working with your Mom at the Daily Planet."

"And I fell in love with him all over again," Lois said, sighing happily. She came to me, sitting on our daughter's bed, snuggling in my arms.

"And then we had you, Princess," I said, tickling her little belly. She squealed in delight.

We kissed our baby goodnight and left the room, closing the door. Lois put on some soft music and turned to me, putting her arms around me.

"I love you Smallville," she said. "I've always loved you. And to think," she said, with a teasing smirk. "It all started because you kissed me when you were eight years old."

"You kissed me."

"And you said I had cooties."

"I was eight years old," I defended myself. "I thought all girls had cooties."

"Would have served you right if I had," she said. Lois could be merciless when she wanted to.

We'd had our ups and downs, but I think we'd always known we were meant to be together. It had all started with a kiss. And as we danced to the soft music we re-enacted that kiss, over and over.

_**It started with a kiss, in the back row of the classroom  
How could I resist the aroma of your perfume  
You and I were inseparable, it was love at first sight  
You made me promise to marry you, I made you promise to be my bride  
But you were only eight years old and I had just about turned nine  
I thought that life was always good, I thought you always would be mine**_

It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this  
It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this

I remember every little thing, like fighting in the playground  
Cause some good looking boys had started to hang around  
That boy hurt me so bad but I was happy 'cause you cried  
Still I couldn't help but notice that new distant look in your eyes  
Then when you were sixteen I had just turned seventeen  
I couldn't hold on to my love, I couldn't hold on to my dream

It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this  
It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this

You don't remember me do you?  
You don't remember me do you?

Walking down the streets again, the star of my love story  
And my heart began to beat so fast, so clear was my memory  
I heard my voice call out your name as you looked then looked away  
I felt so hurt, I felt so small, it was all that I could say

You don't remember me do you?  
You don't remember me do you?

It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this  
It started with a kiss, I never thought it would come to this


End file.
